Page 92 of Fake Shot

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Does she know yet?”

“I’m trying to show her every day.”

“I’m having a really hard time being okay with this,” Jameson says, turning to me. His jaw ticks, and I realize there’s a lot he’s not saying.

I steel myself against his disapproval. I wish it wasn’t this way, but I understand why it is. “I’m telling you what my intentions are. I’m not asking for your permission.”

“That’s good, because you don’t have it. She’s my baby sister. She’s way too young for you. And you’ve got a reputation and a past that she shouldn’t have to deal with. I hope that you truly have changed your ways like you seem to think you have, and that you deserve her. But just know: if it goes badly and I have to choose, I’m always choosing her.”

The elevator dings to let us know we’re at the ground level, right as I say, “As you should.”

My best friend walks out of the elevator and across the lobby, and I stand there, hoping that I’m doing the right thing. Hoping that Jules will one day trust me enough to feel the same way, because if she doesn’t, I’ve just ruined my relationship with the only family I have in Boston.

When she gets home from dinner with her friends, I’m sitting propped up against the pillows on her bed, watching some game footage from Carolina’s last series in preparation for our first game against them tomorrow.She didn’t take me up on my offer to walk her home from the restaurant, but there was no way I wasn’t seeing her tonight.

After two nights in a row of sharing a bed with her, I’m in no hurry to get back up to my own bedroom.Is it too soon to move my bed down here into her bedroom?

She takes one look at me, lying there in nothing but a pair of black athletic shorts, and says, “Change your mind about fucking me?”

“Nope. Change your mind about just using me for sex?”

“Nope.” The way that word comes out of her mouth—hard and certain—is at odds with the way her eyes soften while she looks at me.

“Come here.”

She walks around the bed to the far side, where I slept last night. And as she comes up to what I’m already thinking of as “my side of the bed,” I turn so my legs hang off the edge and I pull her between my knees, holding on to her hips as I look up at her.

“I missed you.”

Staring down at me, her face heats under my gaze, then she closes her eyes and shakes her head with a little laugh. “I missed you, too.”

“I need to tell you something, and I need you to stay calm and not panic when I do.”

Her exhale is shaky, but she manages to squeak out, “Okay?”

I should probably tell her where I was tonight while she was at dinner. I should tell her about Jerome, and about my conversation with Jameson. But that doesn’t seem aspressing as the reality she doesn’t know she’s going to face when she walks into Liberty Arena tomorrow night.

“You know how we’re playing Carolina in this next round of the playoffs?” I ask, and she nods in response. “Do you know who plays for Carolina now?”

She shakes her head, but I can see on her face that she realizes there’s only one reason I would ask her this question. Closing her eyes, her head drops forward.

“I didn’t realize you didn’t know. When Gabriel started talking about Carolina yesterday, I expected some sort of a reaction, but I thought maybe you were just holding it in because we were with my family. But when Walsh started listing the players off at the bar last night, and you didn’t tense up or seem uncomfortable, that’s when it finally occurred to me that you didn’t know.”

“Is that why you wanted to play pool? So I wouldn’t accidentally hear his name?”

I use the tips of my fingers to massage her lower back, hoping she’ll relax from the rigid pose she adopted the minute she realized Brock Lester now plays for Carolina. “Yeah. That, and I wanted to get you alone. I have a hard time sharing your attention with others.”

A single, silent laugh shakes her body. “Well, I appreciate you making sure I didn’t find out from someone else. After Vegas, I made it a point not to follow hockey because I never wanted to think about, or hear about, him again.”

“You don’t have to come to the home games this week if you don’t want to. As much as I would love to have you there, I will completely understand if you stay home. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not totally comfortable with.”

She slides one knee up onto the bed, resting it against my hip, and then does the same with the other so that she’s fully straddling me. Wrapping her arms around me, she clings to me like a koala, and I’ve never been so happy to be smothered in my life.

Holding her tight against me, I realize that the only thing I want in the world is for her to feel safe, and for me to be the one who makes her feel that way.

“I’m not sure if I can go to the game,” she murmurs into my neck, her hot breath caressing the muscles there. “But also, the thought of staying home when everyone else is there...Why should I have to miss out, because of him?”

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